Hivemind: Ideas from the Edge

This insightful, wide-ranging conversation with Ali Chehrehsaz (TerraVerde Energy) explores how solar, storage, and new forms of flexible load (AI, data centers, Bitcoin) are reshaping the grid. Ali walks through the economics of distributed generation, why California’s energy costs are so high, and what happens as solar tips into overproduction. Along the way, the discussion dives into the explod...

Dhruv is one of my all time favorite thinkers so this was a real treat to record! We begin by revisiting a number of provocative ideas from Dhruv’s 2018 talk: Down the Rabbit Hole or Blockchain Mind Candy , including the relationship between Bitcoin & energy and how the Lightning Network is actually a new p2p Internet with built-in incentives. We then discuss Intellectual Property and the coming g...

Anthony & Marks were in town for LlamaCon so we got a chance to jam! We discussed a variety of topics including: * The state of Llama, DeepSeek, and Open Source AI * Dario’s take “On DeepSeek and Export Controls” https://www.darioamodei.com/post/on-deepseek-and-export-controls * Data Quality is key - Garbage In, Garbage Out (speculation: Facebook data not nearly as valuable as Twitter or Reddit?)...

I’ve been sitting on this for a month, but the conversation is more relevant now than ever! As vibe coding enables the creation of orders of magnitude more apps and media, the question becomes: how do I sort through this embarrassment of riches to find what I actually need ? One option is to trust centralized entities like companies or governments. Franzap, however, has another idea. Using Nostr’s...

Jordi is one of the few people in the world with a deep understanding of the concurrent singularities of AI and Bitcoin. He has particularly novel thoughts on the nature of money and markets post AGI/ASI. This was a fascinating discussion - hope you enjoy! A few topics we discuss: * How Jordi became AGI/ASI pilled (language = code) * The concurrent singularities of AGI/Bitcoin (almost no-one under...

I got the opportunity to speak with Vlad, the founder of my favorite search engine, Kagi! Kagi is a Hacker News darling with a popular paid search engine (and an interesting philosophy on how to build better search than Google). Vlad and the team recently announced their intention to engage with and build for the Nostr community! We discuss ideas for how they can implement Nostr features as well a...

We recently hosted a Hivemind Ventures LP/Portfolio day, where we showcased a variety of presentations. The Nostr panel was particularly good so I’ve decided to release it publicly. The panel features an all-star cast, including: Bob Scully (founder of boardwalk.cash ), David King (co-host of Nostr News ), Oscar Merry (co-founder, Fountain ), and Moritz Kaminski (co-founder, Alby ). We discuss: *...

This was a fun and fascinating conversation with Lyn Alden! We discuss a number of topics about which she’s not typically asked. One common thread throughout the conversation is how best to understand and invest around complex systems. Please note that while Lyn and I discuss some biohacking/energy boosting stuff, we’re definitely not doctors, so do your own research ;) Here are a few of the topic...

* The genesis of lightning.store * Parallels between Bitcoin and the punk/DIY scenes  * Max’s dad - indie artist who made some cool trippy nostr shirts (which Max is wearing during interview) * Sam’s NOFX Nostr shirt (which Max wears frequently) * How Sam decides what shirts to make * Making Jack’s favorite shirt, seeing it on the Super Bowl, and stress testing Sam’s Lightning node + btcpayserver...

This was a fun one! In most recent episodes, I’ve had conversations with builders from the Nostr/Bitcoin community about other rabbit holes they’re interested in. In today’s episode, I sat down with Jack Heart, a longtime blogger and veteran of high strangeness and esoteric rabbit holes galore. Although we focus primarily on themes from Jack’s blog and recent book, we do spend some time discussing...

I sit down with LNbits founder Ben Arc for a wide ranging and fascinating conversation about political philosophy, Nostr, and the future of FOSS/AI. Check out the notes below for more details on our discussion. This was a treat to record and I hope you enjoy! * Ben’s left libertarian / anarchist lens on Bitcoin - the ultimate goal is liberty  * Stateless socialism, Marx, and Adam Smith  * Open pro...

Andrew and I sit down for a fun conversation while overlooking the San Francisco Bay. There are a few sound/wind issues with my mic (mostly towards the end), but hopefully nothing too disruptive. We focus a lot on energy, but touch on a number of interesting ideas from the edge, including: * The declining cost of solar and batteries * The commodification of solar and Bitcoin miners  * The intercon...

Max and Tony cover a lot of ground, including: - Music and its role in society: “He who controls the music controls the mind”  - Why the ad model for monetizing the Internet is not only a panopticon, but also extremely ineffective - How to find under appreciated long tail Internet content  - How to improve Nostr on-boarding for noobs  - The role of the curator on Nostr - Permissionless identity cr...

Christopher and Max explore: * The influence of Swarmwise and the Pirate Party on Chris’ approach to building * Lessons learned from the Ron Paul Campaign in ’08 and ’12  * The state of open source AI * Plans for openagents.com to unlock bottoms-up market intelligence * What exactly is the singularity? Is the future gray goo or Star Trek?  This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss thi...

Keyan and Max jam on several topics including: * What is the singularity? * The future of AI and the coming intelligence explosion * Does the brain create or receive consciousness?  * Can machines have souls?  * Do we live in a simulation?  * Keyan’s learnings from 7+ startups prior to Stacker News * How to balance intuition and feedback from reality * Why Jack is a 🐐 founder * Using bitcoin to c...

Stu and Max jam on a wide range of topics including: Terence McKenna, the world of language, evolution, Web of Trust, and the future of Nostr. At least two big ideas really clicked for me: 1) Nostr as the substrate for digital evolution (i.e. forking with checkpoints) and 2) Nostr as an API for market intelligence. This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers...